The Boys of Summer…Have Come
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Early in the day (that places it at two o’clock for those bums who rise at noon…like me), Sean and I met with Jaemin and his friend Mike. We want to band together and form a kind of filmmaking JLA.
We four lingered in Sean’s room and rambled on about the topic that gets every trendy male hot in the crotch: short films. Jaemin and Mike shared story ideas they spent Monday preparing. Sean explained Rory’s First Kiss. Me, I loosened my lips about “The Sequel to How We Met,” my seven page script. This is to be our summer of creativity, and from this afternoon I think we all gleaned a rush of inspiration.
When our meet came to an end and they stepped aside to return to that magic place I call El Aay, I led Sean into his sweltering garage.
This is where my script takes place, and so I tried to light it. The gold hue on his face is from a reflector off camera. The problem is we’re using ten-dollar utility lights, with tempered wax paper to diffuse the bulbs. While this makes a passable medium-to-close shot, there’s no ‘artistic’ coverage in spots with less coordination of lights. The walls are too dark.
The answer to this problem lies with china balls: omnidirectional exposure for all the nooks in the garage. Separation and tone will be controlled by a gradient: light to dark, no black.
I did my best to churn out a dialog piece, in which characters do nothing but talk-talk-talk. In Screenwriting they advise you not to “tell” as much as you should “show.” My guess is that “showing” is for certain types of cinema I want to avoid at the moment. Plays are ideal for dialog: we know going in that action will be substituted with speech. We expect it. In cinema, it can feel like we’ve been cheated. The best talk-heavy films make us feel rewarded for listening and paying attention.
I saw the trailer for 500 Days of Summer. I liked it. But it made me feel dirty. If it looks good, it is because it fills in the cliches like a tailored suit. I’m sure there’s an emo checklist at the office of every small studio; if you qualify you get submitted to Sundance, like a darling honor student bussed away to the national spelling bee. I imagine the studios blowing kisses and shedding a tear, “Do your best! Even if you don’t win, we still love you!”
Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape ignited a crazy-unique revolution of varied tastes. This current “revolution” seems aligned to please the studios and the iTunes crowd, and that makes me suspicious. When indies become homogenized in the future (if they haven’t already), where does that leave the voices of artists who don’t care about how cute Zooey Deschanel is? Or how awesome it would be if Natalie Portman was baited in front of you like a carrot-on-a-stick?
Oh that’s right. We’ll still have the internet, you and I. Hmm, now about those china balls…
lol @ your title
I think, like Ira Glass was saying, that we each have our own taste. And we know that that taste is good. My plan is to follow that taste and see where it leads me. My taste is RushmoreGardenState500DaysofSummer. That is my motivation. That is what I want to make.
I wasn’t discussing taste or opinion. I liked Garden State and I consider Rushmore to be Anderson’s crowning achievement; hell, I *introduced* you to that movie, Sean. My rant had to do with “independent” studios and their homogenization of what gets a wide release and what doesn’t; and how, in this post Little Miss Sunshine environment, the indie scene today versus fifteen years ago (where we saw the rise of Soderbergh, Linklater, Tarantino, Smith, Rodriguez, and many others—a watershed moment of unique talent) is becoming shamefully corporate.
I was trying to apply a sense of irony to 500 Days of Summer—which to me has the gloss of a full-blown Hollywood release. But it’s really a part of a growing trend of selectivism. I applaud its release, and I do believe it will be good; I’m just weary of why it got wide distribution over others, and why we haven’t been exposed to other…genres/material from the indie market.
Oh, I know. I was just sayin’
But I am a sucker for those indie-commercial productions. It’s my genre of choice.
Come to think of it, do they have a name for those movies yet?
[...] we’ve yet to establish a name for our S&P&J&M group. Peter suggested The Boys of Summer. I like it, but the domain isn’t available. Anyone have any other ideas? July 10, 2009 [...]
I don’t think it’s a genre. It’s more of a trend, or at worse, a brand. If I liked these kinds of movies (and I do), my goal would be to give it a piece of myself; to transcend the stereotypes associated with the trend and call it my own. The way Wes Anderson has done it (ironically, now everyone tries to mimic him, as if he’s his own trend). The way, no doubt, Michael Mann has left his mark on his own genres of choice.
The worse an “artist” can do is conform and appease to popular trends. It’s no longer a mindful work of art. It’s a product. Call me analytical, call it whatever you like. Products are shallow things that only exist to make one feel good, like a hooker, or Pop Rocks. By and large, they’re all identical, like hookers, or Pop Rocks. And I don’t doubt that people like their hookers, or Pop Rocks. ‘Liking’ something doesn’t automatically make it meaningful.
It is not that I dislike movies that make me feel good. Of-fuckin-course I enjoy them (because I am educated and commit hours to learn about film, does that rule out my tastes as elitist and dismissible?). But films that take the extra step to make me feel *human* is an even greater feat, one that never fails to melt my heart. All commercial products are engineered to make it’s audience feel good. Micheal Bay does it. But a film that makes you feel more human, well, that’s a rare unicorn.
I have a deep respect for hard working artists, their independence, their courage to be their own trend and to not fall in line, unlike today’s commercial indie; they’re bankable sellouts that only pretend to be one of a kind. Though to some, looking pretty and acting cute is the definition of art; nevermind everything else. Those movies are exposed to a rash and unthinking public of consumers who do little to encourage discussion. I do consider what I say without diluting my words with empty disagreements. Hell, I’m sure it has occurred to you that I am defending the artists you speak of. What I am not defending is an apathy to what a layman may perceive as an “intellectual” or “challenging” film over an emotionally passive feel-good ‘entertainment’ that rolled off a factory belt. The studios obviously feel this way, and they want their audience (white males, aged 17-35) to feel this way too. Cha-ching.
(the word “intellectual” is a nervous layman’s word, the way “virgin” is for those who haven’t had their cherries popped)
Meh, I watched it for fre3 on WikiBlast (.) net and the begining of the movies wasnt bad but the end was too predictible.